“This was after school?” He is writing in a notebook now too.
“Yeah, after school, and Claire said, ‘Want to come to Rock Bass?’”
“But you didn’t go with her to Rock Bass?” He looks at her.
Grace looks away so he won’t think she’s looking at his thing. “No, I didn’t want to go to Rock Bass.”
“Did she tell you she was going to Rock Bass with anyone?”
“Yeah, Ricky.”
“Ricky Froelich?”
“Yeah, everyone knows that.”
“Do you know Ricky Froelich?”
“Yes.”
“Has Ricky Froelich ever touched you?”
Grace looks up as though at the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers. The teacher erupts in a fit of coughing. Inspector Bradley raises a hand to silence him. Grace whips her head around as though she has just remembered that Mr. March is there.
“Answer the question please, Grace,” says the man.
He isn’t angry at me now, he’s angry at Mr. March for coughing.
“Yes sir,” says Grace, straightening in her chair. “He touched me.”
The angry man smiles at her.
“I can’t lie,” whispers Madeleine.
“It’s not a lie. They want to know if he turned left, and you know he did, so say it.”
“You say it.”
“I’m his sister, they don’t believe me.”
Madeleine glances at the classroom door. She sees a shadow move behind the Easter bunny taped to the window. She turns back to Colleen. “Did you see him turn left?”
Colleen doesn’t answer. Instead she says, “We’re blood sisters.” Seurs de san.
“I know.”
“So?”
“So?”
Colleen clamps Madeleine by the wrist. “That means you’re his sister too.”
“Where did he touch you?” asks the man. He smells like metal shavings, but it’s not a bad smell.
“In the schoolyard.”
“I mean where on your body, Grace.”
“Here,” pointing to the small of her back. “He pushed me on the swings.”
Mr. March coughs again and Inspector Bradley says quietly, “Please, sir,” but does not take his eyes from the child. “Has Ricky ever touched you as if you were his girlfriend?”
Grace hesitates. Her tongue finds the corner of her mouth.
“Just tell the truth, Grace,” says the inspector.
But Grace has heard him the way you might hear someone speaking as he rolls up a car window. She tilts her head, her eyes wander over the floor. “Yeah … sometimes … we do exercises.”
“What exercises?” He has a nice voice. He’s kind, like a doctor.
“Oh—” Grace sighs. “You know. Backbends.”
“What else?”
“And squeezing.” Her voice is gentle, almost singsong.
“Squeezing what?”
Rocking again. “His muscle”—the linoleum is grey with queasy streaks—“he said to call it his muscle, but it’s really his thing.”
Inspector Bradley says, “Now Grace, I know this is all very difficult for you.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Well”—his pen poised—“have you ever told anyone about the things Ricky did to you?”
She nods.
“Who did you tell?”
“Marjorie.”
He nods and writes it down.
“And there’s something else about Ricky,” says Grace.
Inspector Bradley looks up.
“He strangles.”
Bradley pauses ever so briefly before resuming his notes. Grace relaxes and, while waiting for him to finish writing, says, “He gave me an egg.”
“An egg?” There is a frankly quizzical expression on his face at this point. He neglects to erase it — he is human, after all. “When?”
“That day.”
“Wednesday?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of egg?”
Grace doesn’t answer.
“A cooked egg?”
“No, a blue one.”
“What kind of egg is that?”
“A special egg,” she says.
Bradley looks up at the pictures lining the walls. The work of nine-year-old and ten-year-old artists. There are bunnies and chicks — even Batman and Robin — but eggs prevail, all gaily decorated with stripes, solids and polka dots in every colour of the rainbow and beyond — including baby blue. He looks back at the child. “An Easter egg?” he asks. She nods.
“Was it a chocolate egg?”
She nods again, then confides, “He said he knew where there was more.”
“Thank you, Grace,” says Inspector Bradley. He stares at his notes while the teacher escorts the child to the side door. The boy used chocolate to lure his victims. Every pedophile knows the power of candy.
Madeleine feels hot. She wants to get away from Colleen. I’m not your sister, he’s not my brother. Colleen lets go of her wrist and takes her hand instead, pressing against it, palm to palm, until Madeleine feels her scab shift and moisten. The door opens. Colleen releases Madeleine and disappears down the hall.
“I don’t remember. I think — I don’t know if I saw him.”
“Look at me, Madeleine.” She does. “Did you see him or not?”
“Are you going to hang him?”
The inspector raises his eyebrows. “Do you think he should be hanged?”
“No!”
He leans back, tilts his head and regards her. Madeleine folds her hands. This policeman with his raincoat and his hat on Mr. March’s desk, he is the boss of the nice one in the uniform standing writing in a notebook with a leather cover, like the kind the Brownies have. Inspector Bradley is like a teacher who already knows how you have done on your test and you haven’t even taken it yet so what’s the point? Madeleine knows she is going to fail.
“Does Ricky like to play with younger children?” he asks. It’s a hard question. Ricky doesn’t go around “playing,” he plays sports and he fixes his car and little kids hang around sometimes and he doesn’t care.
“He doesn’t care,” says Madeleine.
Inspector Bradley’s face has tiny, faint red lines like on a map; it’s square with two vertical wrinkles that run, one from each cheekbone, down to his jaw. Thin ginger hair. Hazel eyes, bloodshot; they say, This is not a joke. Nothing is ever a joke. He seems not to have heard Madeleine’s answer. He asks, “Does he seek out younger children?”
Madeleine knows the inspector isn’t talking about hide ’n’ seek, but she is tempted to be a retard for him. “You mean like hide ’n’ seek?”
“No.” He just looks at her. She pulls her chin in so her face looks fat, raises her eyebrows and bugs out her eyes at the floor.
Mr. March says, “Madeleine,” and she unmakes the face.
The inspector asks, “Has Ricky ever behaved toward you as though he were your boyfriend?” Madeleine chortles, but he isn’t kidding. “Answer the question please, Madeleine.”
“No,” says Madeleine.
“I’m afraid you have to answer—”
“I mean no, he never….”
Inspector Bradley proceeds methodically. He knows she has the thing he is looking for, she has hidden it in one of her pockets or her shoe, he will just keep frisking her until he finds it. “Did he ever ask you on a picnic?”
Madeleine shakes her head.
“Did he offer you a ride on his bike?”
“You mean his motor scooter?”
“Any bike.”
“Once we were all down at the schoolyard and—”
“Did you ever go for a ride with him alone?”
“No.”
“Has he ever touched you?”
“Pardon?”
“Has he ever touched you?”
“Um. He put his hand on the top of my head once and said try and punch him, but I couldn’t reach.”
“Has he touched you where he shouldn’t, or has he made you touch him?”